Being Human’s Sam Witwer and Anna Fricke Discuss Season 3

“I am not going to die. I an not going to die.” Those words were the mantra of Aidan on Being Humanduring that first episode of Season 3 on Monday night. And what an episode it was! I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t and the twist at the end with Sally – I saw it coming and yet… wow.

Sam Witwer, the man who portrays Aidan, as well as series Executive Producer Anna Fricke took some time out to talk to the press about what we can expect from Being Humanthis season. And it sounds like we are in for a wild and thrilling time.

The focus of Being Human this season is really on the characters: their lives get shaken up in ways they had never imagined. Witwer said, “I think Anna and her writers did a fantastic job in creating a season that allowed us to get really deep with our characters this year. This is definitely the character season where we really get to know the characters even better than we did before in a big way.”

Fricke’s response was almost as if she were giving foreshadowing. “I think part of what we’ve always loved about the concept of the show is that it’s a very human process that they’re going through,” she said. “And the whole concept of Being Human is that it’s never going to work out for these people.” For those familiar with the UK version of the show – the one where the entire cast decided to completely give up on ever being human – these are chilling words. But this is one of those things that drives the story of both shows.

In the first episode of the new season, it’s 15 months later and everything seems to have changed: Aidan has been buried alive, Sally is stuck in limbo and Josh is apparently cured from being a werewolf. Fricke talked about this timeline and how it freed her up as a writer. “We really felt like we could spread our wings a little bit. It made it a lot of fun starting off the year because who knows what happened to these people, how did they get into this dynamic – what happened here?”

For Witwer, the fun of so much time having passed in that world was being able to grow a beard. “Totally, it was amazing. Yes – starve myself, grow facial hair, arrive on set hungry and hairy – that’s the way you do it. That’s the way to start any season,” he said as he laughed. “It was really cool because you do get to breath a little bit of fresh life into the characters when you’re rediscovering them 15 months later and everyone of them has gone through some pretty big changes, I mean that’s an understatement, things have changed quite a bit.”

On the UK version of Being Human, the vampire and ghost eventually hook up. Can we expect a similar romance between the US version of those characters, Sally and Aidan? “Sally and Aidan have been roommates for awhile now and because of certain things, there’s an unexpected level of interaction between the two,” Witwer stated. “So it brought a lot of things into question.” But is that a “yes” or “no?” Witwer said, “I’ll say that we see a lot of really strange scenes with Sally and Aidan this year.”

Strange indeed. But what’s considered strange in a show that stars two werewolves, a vampire and a ghost?

In that first episode Monday night, we learned that a plague has begun to wipe out vampires. And Aidan seems to be the only immune vampire because his blood has not yet been tainted. In other words, being buried alive actually kept him alive. How will that continue to play into future episodes and will Aidan allow his fellow vampires to die? “The thing is that Aidan does belong to this group of people and so, with their existence threatened, certainly his feelings of loyalty and belonging are challenged,” Witwer said, careful of giving away spoilers.

Fricke attempted to add on to that, “I would say that our show is always been a lot about the balance – the balance in nature and what it is to be human and playing with that moral ground.” It seems to be a case of “Be careful what you wish for,” this season, doesn’t it?

It seems that the US version of Being Human has deliberately branched off to be its own series, especially after last season. But it does seem that certain themes are prevalent to both. But Fricke assured me that this was not deliberate. “You can’t avoid it because we’re swimming in the same pond,” she said. In fact, she stated that the writers purposely have not watched the UK series. But sometimes the overlap just happens, “We’ll come up with something we think ‘Oh, we’re so great, this is such a great story. We’re so original,’ and then we find out, ‘Oh, yes, they had a character just like this on the British series.’ I had no idea. But we’re definitely going down our own path.”

Finally, let’s get down to the real nitty-gritty. Who has the most difficult life: vampires or werewolves? Witwer was quick to chime in when asked if Aidan would trade places for Josh. “Totally, yes, because he only has to deal with it once a month. I mean, how bad is that?” But he didn’t stop there. “You know, we have two main characters who are werewolves, but what happens in the meantime? Oh, they’re just hanging out, playing Xbox; it’s no big deal.”

In a follow-up interview I did with those two werewolves (portrayed by Sam Huntington and Kristen Hager), I received a different response. But you’ll have to wait to read that. Stay tuned for more.